Messages

151

GPU Compute / Accelerators / Re: GPU options as of December 2021

« on: July 18, 2022, 07:38:03 am »

So Hell froze over and it looks like Nvidia are switching over to MIT/GPL licensed kernel drivers. Does this do anything for Turing family support?

Given past experience I really doubt it. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

Intel, on the other hand, has been a reliably good citizen for open source graphics. Their devs have also made some comments about taking steps to ensure their cards will work on non-x86 machines. I’m much more cautiously optimistic there - maybe we’ll even get drivers that don’t require compiling with 4K kernel pages to reliably work.

152

General OpenPOWER Discussion / Re: News?

« on: July 12, 2022, 11:50:06 am »

That's fantastic! When did you place an order for one? Hopefully my order will be filled as well; I placed mine almost a year and a half ago

I placed mine in late September of last year. Cross your fingers.

edit: Got an email this evening confirming shipment, with a tracking number. What a weekend for me to go out of town... but next week I'm free to set it up!

153

General OpenPOWER Discussion / Re: News?

« on: July 11, 2022, 12:29:51 pm »

I discussed the state of my Raptor order last week and was told they’d received a shipment of Blackbirds and would resume shipping shortly. I was even told that they would be able to ship mine out within a week, though I haven’t gotten a shipment update or tracking number yet. I really hope that info was accurate.

154

General OpenPOWER Discussion / Re: News?

« on: June 09, 2022, 08:27:49 pm »

Still hoping for news about Blackbird stocks - I asked on Twitter late last week and there hasn’t been a peep. I realize the supply chain is borked, but it’s been more than eight months since I placed my order.

155

User Zone / Re: Calling for gaming experiences

« on: April 14, 2022, 10:25:23 pm »

Any word on D2X-XL or DXX-Rebirth for old school Descent? Also keen to see about GZDoom - I know AsmJit hasn't been ported, but the game isn't that hard to run... I'd like to think Power9 would be just fine with the GL/Vulkan renderer enabled.

156

Mod Zone / Re: Convert an IBM System X3200 M3 case to be ATX compliant

« on: February 11, 2022, 09:02:42 am »

The IBM System X3200 M3 workstation is 90% compatible with ATX motherboard.

I was fortunate to get one for $20 AUD. The modifications are:

* I/O plate trim down to fit the ATX I/O plate (it is not perfect, there is a small gap)
* USB front panel hub
* LEDs front panel
* PSU replacement

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anJDGK0RPOI

Wow, that's really nice. I like how well USB3 blue complements the Power9 case sticker too. Classic's right, that stock PSU is hilariously awful, especially for anything with such beefy (deafening) cooling. If I could find another non-x86 motherboard I'd love to make it live in the husk of an old white Aptiva. Time will tell on that one.

157

Applications and Porting / Re: CDE 2.4.0c runs quite okay on Fedora 35

« on: February 11, 2022, 09:00:08 am »

I have a nostalgic fondness for CDE going way back - the Xfce theme usually gets me further than CDE itself on modern monitors, but I'm happy to see this regardless. Good work.

158

Operating Systems and Porting / Re: Haiku

« on: February 04, 2022, 07:22:16 am »

Stupid question: if you don't have the mainboard or CPU, what do you have instead?

32GB RAM, new-in-box Radeon Pro W5500, Chenbro SR20503 case, EVGA 650W power supply, two 256GB SSDs, a 4TB hard drive, a Pioneer Blu-ray drive, Intel PCIe wireless card, and relevant cables - but I’ve been waiting on the CPU, heatsink, and motherboard since I bought them in September. Glad to know I’m not alone, but an official update and timeline would be really nice…

And yes, Haiku would scream bloody murder on current Power hardware. I’d be happy to test builds on mine, whenever it gets here.

159

Talos II / Re: Using the μPCIe connector (J10108)

« on: October 21, 2021, 03:48:22 pm »

The manual suggests it is 4 lanes (PCIe 4.0 x4)

The errata states it is an Oculink SFF-8621 physical connector but it is not completely wired for Oculink

Nonetheless, do the PCIe lanes work sufficiently for an SFF-8621 to U.2 NVMe cable?

Here is an example of the cable CBL-SAST-0956 from Supermicro

The cable is not very expensive, I might simply buy one to try it.

I've seen Raptor offer the cable when you buy a Blackbird combo, so it's presumably a supported use case. I'm thinking about doing that after I've tested my incoming Blackbird for stability and gotten a feel for its performance with SATA.

160

GPU Compute / Accelerators / Re: Which GPU would *you* choose?

« on: August 18, 2021, 04:03:04 pm »

At this point - assuming I build a Power9 machine in the next few months - which GPU is more likely to behave itself with a contemporary install of Ubuntu? A Radeon FirePro W7000 (GCN 1.0), or an XFX Radeon R9 390 (GCN 1.1)? And is amdgpu likely to work if I force it with kernel parameters? And while I'm at it, how is Navi support at this point?

These are things I wonder before hearing that Intel's Arc is coming early next year... Here's hoping they manage solid OSS drivers like they have for their IGPs so far, and that they'll work on non-x86 architectures in due time.